Another Realistic Settings Guide (In-Game Stuff)

Another guide on how to make your game feel a bit more realistic. Mod choices and all too. I think

Overview

Feel like the cops pulling you over for half a mile over is unfair. In some cases, some cops will but let's be honest, not all will. Tired of seeing the same sketchy van go past you fifty times? Tired of filling up with diesel from some sketchy gas station? Tired of running those curtain trailers that I'm sure don't exist anymore? Then this guide will help you out some. Don't believe me? Check out this fancy trailer.



The days of when I used to work for Wal-Mart. Pay was crap but man, did I get those benefits. Moving right along to the next section!

The 'Gameplay' Section

Once you get in to a profile, you'll see a UI. You wanna click options then gameplay. From there you'll have a list of lovely choices to pick from. These are what I use to give it a more authentic feel.




Fatigue Simulation:: You have a 14 hour clock to run on. Once your time hits about an hour and a half remaining (don't quote me on that), your driver will start to yawn. You will probably also get a notification. It's best to start finding a rest area for the night or day. It's not like the other trucking games SCS made where there's no penalty for driving without sleep. Much like ETS and ETS2, you can get fined and you can doze off and probably wreck your truck and damage your load. Highly recommend this to be on.

Traffic Offense:: Do you want tickets? Recommendation is yes. It's even better if you have Klaas' Real Economy mod on. That little mod will definetly keep you from running into people, running red lights or just speeding as a whole.

Route Advisor Speed Limit: Couple of options here. By default, your nav will show the truck limit. California is 55, Nevada is 70, I believe, and Arizona is 65 or 70, maybe higher. As long as you are running whatever the number is on the nav, you are golden in the cops eyes. The same goes for the car limit option. However, if you really want to feel like an actual trucker, then set the option to hide. Of course, you'll require basic knowledge of speed limits but it's fun. You'll also have to keep an eye for the speed limit signs. I run 72 in California, Nevada and Arizona. I might run 75 in Arizona but it all depends on my mood. Recommendation is 'hide'

Parking Difficulty: Set this to random Whenever you arrive at the customer, you'll have to park within a few locations. Normally, you would stop, talk to the guard and he would tell you where to park.

Transmission Type: Automatic, Real Automatic, Sequential, or H-Shifter. Automatic requires to use the gas and brake without any shifting. Real Auto requires you to shift between drive, neutral, and reverse. Sequential is your manual transmission. I use this. I'm on a laptop. I prefer sequential because I can play around with the gears more on hills. H-Shifter is your steering wheel and shifter combo.

Braking Intensity/Trailer Stability: Slide these all the way to the left. I think both are self-explanatory. Braking intensity is how your brakes react. Default values are in the middle so you don't have start slowing down from a distance. Trailer stability affects how stable the trailer is at certain speeds during curves. So if you run a 2k hp motor and are going 120 in a curve, you might...you will roll it over.

Advanced Coupling: This has to be on. Of course some mods might not be ready for this feature. You have to line your fifth wheel up with the kingpin.

Automatic engine start: This option starts the truck whenever you press the E key or press the gas. That's not how this works IRL so get rid of it.

Liftable axles: You would have switches for that. Turn it off. Utilize the key for it. Heavy haulers unite!

Air brakes and realistic fuel consumption: Check both of those boxes. 18 WoS Haulin was good for that feature. I never held the brakes in that game because the air would drop like crazy. SCS fixed that here and with ETS. If your pressure is low, your brakes are locked up. Wait till the pressure builds up like a trucker normally would. Excessive braking, damaged truck are two cause of that to happen.

Fuel consumption is self-explanatory. Heavier loads and faster speeds with drink more fuel. Lighter loads and slower speeds will conserve fuel. Always check your gauges and your info on how many more miles you have to go. Also know your tank size. The 579 220 gallon tanks will not be able to go as far as the W900 or 389's 300 gallon tanks. Bigger tanks hold more fuel, which means less filling up.

S/N: I just put almost $700 into that 389 on my profile. Granted my light had kicked but still...

Mods

I'm not going to link the mods right now, but in the future I might. A few mods I suggest to make the game more realistic are all available on Steam or on mod websites. I personally use atsmods.lt for my stuff.

Jazzycat: If you played ETS2, you know all about Jazzy. AI mods and trailer mods.

Other trailer mods: There are too many to name. Solaris has a flatbed one, Fontaine Phantom, and so does B4RT. B4RT also does the Wabash stuff too. There's a 53' and 20' container mod on Steam, as well as a water tanker and some other. I run the containers and a Food Lion reefer. I will try to add the ones that I use or have used in the past, links included.

Split-Axle Reefer: http://atsmods.lt/2-split-axle-great-danes-trailer/

Wabash Duraplate Reworked Trailer 1.0 (This one slides your tandems all the way to the rear): http://atsmods.lt/wabash-duraplate-reworked-trailer-v-1-0/

Old Wilson Cattle Trailer Custom: http://atsmods.lt/old-wilson-cattle-trailer-custom-by-baconz1343/

MAC Trailer: http://atsmods.lt/macsimizer-half-round/

SmithCo Sidedump: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=753456136&searchtext=

Fontaine Phantom [Smarty]: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=778919024&searchtext=

Fontaine Velocity: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=805401204&searchtext=

Utility 3000R Trailer Pack: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=779872720&searchtext=

The Phantom Trailer: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=707641772&searchtext=

LX Specialized Lowbed: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=791931182&searchtext=

Tremcar Milk Tanker: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=760080488&searchtext=

1994 Fabrex Walking Trailer: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=788370285&searchtext=

Dale JR Hauler: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=736565805&searchtext=

Sysco Reefer: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=784253003&searchtext=

Dale SR Hauler: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=735375055&searchtext=

Breast Cancer Awareness: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=770326997

Overweight Trailer Pack (Outdated): http://atsmods.lt/overweight-trailers-pack-v-2-5/

Jazzycat Trailer & Cargo: http://atsmods.lt/trailers-and-cargo-pack-by-jazzycat-v1-2-1/

Oversize Trailers: http://atsmods.lt/oversize-trailers-u-s-a-v4/

USA Trailers Pack: http://atsmods.lt/usa-trailers-pack-update-1-3/

Wabash Duraplate: http://atsmods.lt/wabash-duraplte-v2-0/

Wabash Duraplate (Replaces those curtain trailers): http://atsmods.lt/wabash-durplate/

Reefer Container: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=735344821&searchtext=

Dunkin' Donuts: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=668372514&searchtext=

Food Lion: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=679804803&searchtext=

Wilson Grain: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=680180885&searchtext=

Water Tanker: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=692795532&searchtext=

Schneider Intermodal: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=719075216&searchtext=

53' Container: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=690724206&searchtext=

20' Container: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=686657263&searchtext=

North American Trailer: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=659536221&searchtext=

Gas Stations No more unnamed gas stations. Steam workshop version changes them to Irving while the non-steam variant, if it still works, gives you BP, Texacco and Chevron.

Cops: There is a lower cop spawn mod. It lessens the number of officers on the highway. Also there's one out there that will give you state troopers. Both are the workshop, and I recommend them having a high priority.

Sorry about this section being so crappy. I will try to clean it up within the future. One more section.

Edit: I kinda made progress. Will still work on it :3

Inconsistencies with Realism in the Game

The major inconsistency is probably the weigh stations. If you run trailer mods, then you know what I'm talking about. Legal weight for California and most states is 80,000 lbs. Anything over is considered overweight and will result in a fine. Haulin', Convoy, PTTM...those games had those penalties. I think the fine was $1,000 back then. Hopefully SCS will implent that in the future. This would mean the scales would show greater details, being able to adjust the trailer axles and keeping fuel in your truck at a certain level. Last load I hauled was a flatbed and I weighed 100,000lbs. I passed inspection. Legally, I probably would have been turned every which way but loose.

Closing

I thank you for reading this guide. I hope this helps you in some form or fashion in playing American Truck Simulator. As I said before, I apologize for the guides formatting at times. I rushed while making this however I will fix things and implent links where necessary. The 389 in the background of the three pictures is my main truck now. It has 14,660 miles. The truck runs a 550 C15 Cat engine with a Eaton-Fuller 18-speed transmission. Again, thank you for reading and I will be making edits whenever I have time to do so.

[2016 Toyota Corolla S]

also, if you're using an h-shifter, you can set "g_synchronised_transmission 0" to get it to be non-syncho, like actual Eaton, etc. transmissions

[druiz996]

What about the suspension settings? What have you done with that? It'd be really cool to have a 2020 version

[Zero [是鷺]]

Hey guys, sorry I've been kinda busy. Had to get a new laptop recently and I've been trying to do more real life things haha. I don't know about doing a second guide, but we'll see. It's just as easy to edit this one. Trucks have changed, I'm not running so many profiles as I was before either.

[Joseph Shafer]

Great this helps me alot going to look this up when I get home from school and use these settings when I run in ats anymore

[Darth Bokeh]

It isn't a really stretch to show speed limits on the GPS. I have an old Garmin and it never used to show speed limits. After doing a firmware update and updating its maps, I now see the speed limits of all roads.

[skull crusher]

curtain side trailers still do excist i load them all the time at work

[GeriatricGinger]

Echo Zero - good write-up! Thanks for sharing. It's been many years since I was behind the wheel of a big truck.. Hay (alfalfa) haulin' was our way of life, dragging it from Hagerman NM to Lamar, CO, Bosier, LA, and everywhere in between. Dodging scales, using cover of fog and darkness, etc. haha. Times sure were different back then.. Thank you for what you do, both IRL and for this community. Shiny side up, roger?

[Razgriz 6]

OP, how do you feel about this game helping people learn the concepts of driving a truck? I'm starting my CDL-A training soon and I'm wondering if I can use the same concepts I've learned on here when it comes to trailer backing and what not.

[Rexz]

Pretty good guide

[STUDIOHUSKY]

MAKE A NEW ONE.